Article by
Barbados Today

Published on
April 11, 2013

At a time when businesses in Barbados are sending home their employees due to a downturn in the economy, at least one company is expanding and hiring more staff.
The good news came from the mouth of Chief Executive Officer of Digicel Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, Barry O’Brien, when he addressed the official opening of its annual Business ICT Conference at Hilton Barbados Resort this morning.
While also announcing Digicel’s partnership with a number of powerful and ICT companies, O’Brien disclosed that the telecommunications provider would be expanding its operations and was looking for an additional 20 key personnel.
“At Digicel, we understand that the key to success in this ICT business is human resources. We have progressed our plans to become the number one full service ICT company by hiring key staff, establishing an ICT headquarters and forming vital partnerships,” the CEO added.
“We are also continuing this drive whereby we will have increased our ICT staff locally by 20 persons in 2013. We now have vacancies for 20 key people.”
In further explaining the expansion project, Corporate Sales Manager, Rudy Archer, told Barbados TODAY the company expected to relocate from its current site at Hastings, Christ Church, to newly-retrofitted facilities at the former Courts building opposite the Oistins Fisheries Complex by the middle of next month.
Archer pointed out that the new business centre would be specially outfitted to accommodate a full Digicel retail outlet, a technology centre that would display current technologies for corporate clients, a business group for 20 to 30 people and space for pre-sale, accounts manager, sales administration and customer service.
He explained that the new staff which the telecoms provider wanted to employ would essentially be technology and engineering personnel. However, Archer noted that Digicel would still conduct some training for those people to suit its own environment.
He revealed too, that while the business centre would move to Oistins, the administration was scheduled to relocate in September to the H&B Hardware complex, now under construction at Warrens, St. Michael.
During his address, the Digicel CEO told the business people attending the ceremony that its present goal was to have 25 per cent of its revenue from ICT by 2014.
“In 2012, ICT revenue as a percentage of our overall revenues reached double digits and with our plans, we are confident we can achieve our 2014 target,” added O’Brien. (EJ)††